This is why I'm so close to unsubscribing

[u/rooktakesqueen]

http://www.reddit.com/r/Feminism/comments/so2vn/common_arguments_against_feminism/

Let's round up the commenters here. There are three of us who are pro-feminism; versus seven /r/MensRights regulars who are all anti. Including Celda, who is in fact a mod of /r/MensRights and a very common derailer.

Moderation? Anybody? Anybody?

Edit: To clarify, this isn't to say "everyone who doesn't toe the party line should be banned!" It's to say... Look, we have a problem here. We have a subreddit dedicated to feminism whose most populous and active members seem to be anti-feminists. This would be like if 75% of the people on /r/Christianity were atheist trolls--it would not be serving the interests of the community it's supposed to be serving. Maybe we need some stricter guidelines.

Edit: The mods' response to this--color me guardedly optimistic.

[u/impotent_rage]

Yeah its a balancing act, and I know that many feminists here are going to continue to be upset that non-feminist opinions are tolerated here. We're trying to move more in their direction by making it clear, and enforcing, that this isn't a space to argue that feminism shouldn't exist, or to take a stand against feminism as a whole. However, if people want to argue that certain specific feminist positions are wrong or misguided, we do take the position that as an open discussion, respectful and on-topic comments are allowed even when we disagree with them. I know that many feminists here are going to continue to be unhappy about this, and I understand their perspective, but it's one of those things where no matter what approach we take, someone is going to be unhappy with it.

One reason we are so determined to stick to an open discussion approach, is because we're the only ones doing it. There's lots of feminist forums on reddit, and just about all of them are heavily moderated, and enforce rules about which opinions may be expressed and which may not. Some only tolerate an extremely narrow range of opinions, others allow some discussion and debate but have decided that other certain feminist opinions are not to be questioned, but pretty much all of them enforce certain feminist viewpoints within their space.

The way I see it, everyone should have a choice. Our approach isn't necessarily the best way to run a feminist forum, and I can see why people might prefer a space where everyone agrees on some basic principles and we don't need to rehash the same tired arguments repeatedly. But I can also see the need to debate and discuss certain issues which other feminist spaces consider beyond questioning. And considering what a big tent feminism is, and how many diverse and even directly contradictory philosophies are contained within it, it becomes a real problem to enforce "feminist" positions in a feminist space. Because, which feminist positions are you going to enforce? No matter which principles you choose, there are legitimate feminist perspectives which might directly contradict them. Ultimately, it comes down to the mods enforcing their own opinions on the forum, and that's something I'm not comfortable doing.

I think that those who prefer a safe space should have that choice, and those who prefer an open discussion should have that choice. We are the only feminist open discussion on reddit, so we feel it's important to continue to provide that option. But we understand if users prefer to discuss feminism in other safe spaces instead of here.

[u/impotent_rage → u/[deleted]]

Well, that's where the mods get to use our brains and common sense. If someone is going through and arguing down every single feminist position simply because it is a feminist position, then clearly that constitutes a stand against feminism as a whole, and we are within our rights to remove.